LUMBY, B.C. – A man who was out hunting in Lumby Saturday afternoon was faced with a scary situation after he bent over to adjust a heat pack in his shoes and ended up falling down a ravine. According to Dave Hauber with Vernon Search and Rescue, the 51-year-old Kelowna man’s hip gave out, causing him to fall. He says the man was lying on cold ground for at least an hour.
“He was down off a ravine and they launched a search and rescue helicopter so we arrived, lowered a stretcher and winched him back up and flew him to Kelowna General Hospital,” says Hauber.
Hauber says this was the first helicopter winch rescue using new equipment.
“This was the first deployment where they had to winch a patient into the machine and fly them to hospital with a Vernon Search and Rescue Wildcat helicopter,” says Hauber.
He says typically the search and rescue crews would have gone down and hauled him out by hand, to wherever they could get him to safely. Then, he would have been ground transported to hospital. He adds the man suffers from minor, non-life threatening injuries.
Hauber says the incident happened around 1 o’clock in the afternoon east of Lumby near Echo Lake. Someone called 9-1-1 and when BC Ambulance Service crews were unable to reach him, Vernon Search and Rescue crews were called in.
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